


it's you, it's still you

by youatemytailor



Category: Black Sails
Genre: FLINT HAS A LOT OF EMOTIONS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN, M/M, Multi, declarations of love that are not declarations at all but mutual understanding instead, i dont know, im sorry, intimate non-sexual touching, lots of feelings and pining and me crying in the distance idek, silver attempts to get a piercing, silver gets a tattoo, silverflint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 17:23:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10644552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youatemytailor/pseuds/youatemytailor
Summary: "Come on," Silver prompts, craning his neck to catch Flint in his periphery. "Don't tell me Captain Flint is flinching at the sight of a little blood—I've seen you dig a bullet out of your shoulder with your fucking fingers for Christ’s sake, Flint, you can’t be serious—""It's not the—when did you get that?"Strands of hair fall out of Silver’s grip and back over his ear as he struggles in his chair to catch Flint’s eye. "When did I get what? What are you—"There, behind the curve of cartilage and almost invisible under the red smears, is a small tattoo."That," Flint says, quietly.There’s a shivering silence, before Flint presses his thumb over it and Silver breathes a single; "Oh."





	

**Author's Note:**

> There's no explanation for this. Here's my suffering.

Silver's gone. 

Not dead, just. Nowhere to be  _fucking_  found.

Flint has been running—well, walking  _briskly_ —around the camp all morning trying to catch a glimpse of Silver's head of hair, keeping an ear out for the sound of a crutch or a gravelly voice barking out a single damn order, and  _nothing_. He's not in Madi's tent—though Madi is not in Madi's tent either, which is unusual—he's not with the Queen, not in the armoury, nor is he gorging on a pig in the middle of the camp with the rest of the crew. In short he's not anywhere. Vanished into thin fucking air.

The longer Flint looks for him—while resolutely pretending  _not_  to look for him—the more a palpable sense of panic sets into his bones; clamps around his heart like a vice.

Has he run off? No, that's ridiculous. He wouldn't, not with so much at stake. Perhaps he’d gotten into trouble, somehow? On an island full of allies that was also highly unlikely. The entire crew was under the protection of the Queen now; her word the law and her people abiding to the letter, though some more reluctantly than others. Still, Flint's sure that the old Silver would have swindled all of them into a rage and gotten himself punched by now; or at the very least accidentally set fire to something and brought the whole place crashing down over their heads.   

But Silver gets into a lot less trouble these days, trying very hard to settle into being a king. He's convincing, too; talking more and smiling less. That thought alone brings its own kind of ache and Flint shoves it aside, because he hasn't got the  _time_.  

Head swirling with worry as the sun beats down on the back of his neck, Flint stops his frantic search for a moment to wipe at his brow with his sleeve. It's then, as he looks around with his palm braced against his forehead that he spots a tuft of distinctly red hair in the distance. Stomping towards it with renewed purpose, as soon as the man is within earshot Flint asks without preamble;

"Have you seen him?"

Paused halfway through oiling the edge of his axe, Hands looks up from where he's sitting on a rock. A shadow passes over his face at the sight of Flint, a sneer curling the side of his lopsided mouth. The man still doesn’t like him, that much is clear. Not that Flint gives a fuck, really, because the feeling is entirely mutual. Hands doesn't have to like him. He does, however, have to answer Flint's fucking question.

Flint doesn't repeat himself, only stares expectantly in a way he knows from experience to be intimidating. A moment later Hands looks away, huffs out a reluctant grunt and points to the edge of the camp.

Nodding his thanks, Flint takes off in the direction indicated; a small hut functioning as the infirmary, wedged between the well and the warehouses. It had not occurred to him to check there during his search, which in retrospect is fucking  _idiotic._  Panic bubbles up in his throat again and heads begin to turn as he goes because Flint is, well—less  _walking briskly_ and more  _running_ , at this point, so he doesn't even have time to consider that perhaps he should slow down, think things through, think about how this  _looks_ , before a loud yelp of pain from the direction of the hut reaches his ears.

Flint bursts through the door shoulder-first before he knows what he's doing. It takes a second longer to adjust to the relative darkness of the room but the coils around Flint's heart relax as soon as he hears a familiar voice.  

" _Jesus_ ," Silver yelps, "What is it? What's happened?"

"I'm sorry, I was—"

The rest of Flint’s poorly thought out excuse turns to ash in his throat when he looks up.

Silver is seated in the very centre of the room, perched on a high stool between the rows of cots lining the walls. The light from the now open door illuminates the way his unruly hair has been drawn into an unruly knot high on his head, the way the sleeves of his shirt have been rolled up to his elbows, his collar hanging open, draped loosely around his neck. He seems relaxed, but there’s an air of propriety about him that Flint has never seen before. His beard seems recently trimmed, sharp around the edges where it used to be wild. His crutch is balanced across his lap and his jacket hangs behind his chair, spilling regally onto the ground. Madi is standing to his right. She’s leaning over him with one hand on his neck and the other on his shoulder; the deep red of her skirt pooling on the floor in a wide, great arc. She looks ethereal like this, as if she’s faintly glowing. The beads in her hair throw reflections of light in every direction. 

For a single, ridiculous moment, everything feels suspended. It’s as if they have walked out of an oil painting together; as if Flint has accidentally stumbled into one. The feeling pulls and pulls at a thread of memory until it finally untethers itself and  _spills_ ; Thomas and Miranda, wrapped up in each other and seated across him in a parlour in London, a lifetime ago.

Of all things. Flint feels as if his legs might buckle under him. 

The dizziness abates when he realises that Madi is holding an apple in her hand. There is blood smeared inexplicably over the skin of the fruit. The red draws Flint’s eye and shatters the reverie entirely when he notices that there is more blood seeping down the side of Silver's neck, tiny drops staining the blue of his shirt. 

The sight is inexcusably violent. Flint sputters, " _What_ —"

"I'm piercing his ear," Madi says. She holds up the needle in her hand as proof and gives Silver a side-along glance of frustration. "I'm  _trying_  to, at least. I cannot say I am succeeding."

In lieu of a reply Silver turns into her and smiles so affectionately that Flint's throat constricts, his mind slipping backwards once more. His throat threatens to close up entirely when Silver's hand climbs to his shoulder to squeeze Madi's fingers, when she responds to his expression in kind with a fond grin of her own. Flint wishes he could turn away without attracting their attention. 

"Shut the door," Silver says then. His eyes shift over to Flint, the sentiment in them undisturbed. "Come have a look. Look at what she’s done to me." 

Promptly Madi withdraws her hand from Silver's and smacks his neck. “You would have a hoop through your ear by now if you would just stop moving around. Children at this camp have their ears pierced as new-borns. None of them put up this much fuss.”

“Says the woman trying to  _stab_  me.”

Madi looks aghast; Silver is still grinning. “You  _asked!_ " she insists, "It is not as if I am doing this for my own enjoyment—"

"What, are you telling me you don't  _enjoy_  stabbing me?" 

"Not thus far, no,” Madi says, “But you are certainly testing my patience—”

All things considered, there's a world of difference between what Flint expected to be walking into and what he's looking at. His heart hasn't caught up entirely; it's still skipping unevenly in his chest, a light tremor skittering in his hands. Pirates and maroons alike crane their necks trying to see inside as Flint shuts the door. The hut is so quiet, all of a sudden. Warm, like a home, pressing into Flint’s back.

When he turns around there are two sets of eyes on him. The smile slips from Silver’s face at the sight of Flint’s expression. “Are you all right? You look paler than usual."

"I'm fine," Flint says, ignoring the flash of concern in Silver’s eyes—veiled, as always, by a jibe. 

Silver snorts, though there is no humour in it this time. “You don’t look fine. The way you came in here—you seemed, I don’t know—”

"I was looking for you," Flint interrupts; anything to deflect from the fact that he burst into a fucking infirmary of all places like he was about to enter into a fight to the death.

It works. Madi’s eyes narrow thoughtfully. In his lap, Silver's grip around the crutch tenses, and he shifts in his seat as if to get out of it. "Why? Has something happened? Am I needed?"

 _Needed_. Flint wants to laugh, suddenly. Instead, he says, "The Queen wished to speak with you that's all."

It's a  _bad_  lie. He feels incredibly foolish; the Queen has never asked for an audience with Silver before, and every person currently in the room knows this for a fact. As expected there's a beat of terrible, incredulous silence. Silver is frowning, opening his mouth to speak when Madi does, saving Flint's life and dignity in the process.  

"I'll take care of my mother," she says. She presses a light kiss to Silver's temple as she straightens up; he opens his mouth as if to protest but she clamps a firm hand around his shoulder. "No, John. You cannot meet her for the first time covered in your own blood. Let me speak to her first, and perhaps I can convince her to give you the time of day. Clean yourself up and join us later, if you wish.”

Flint does not want to think about how that conversation is going to go when The Queen never even asked to see Silver in the first place. He could have sworn he used to be better at lying, surely he must have been. Time was his survival depended on it. As he watches Silver's hand trail down Madi's arm in a goodbye, it occurs to Flint that perhaps it's not the ability to lie that's the problem, only the audience for it. 

On her feet at last, Madi turns to Flint. “Here—perhaps you can convince him to stop moving for a moment. Good luck."

Skirt fluttering in her wake, she throws Flint a small smile and is out the door before he can return it, before he can say a word to deter her. At a loss Flint stares down dumbly at his hands, now holding the apple and needle that she handed over as she left.

"Well, you've certainly made a mess of this," Flint says, finally. "Though I can't say I'm surprised."

The low laugh that tumbles out of Silver’s mouth releases the last of the tension in Flint's chest; replaces it, with something warm and bright that he can feel to the tips of his fingers.

"Come on," Silver says, waving him over. "Tell me if I'll live, doctor." 

A smile tugs at Flint's mouth as he steps forward to take a look. Silver arches his arm over his head to hold up the errant strands of hair blocking his ear. 

"You'll live,” Flint confirms, circling Silver to get a better angle. He clasps his hands behind his back as he goes lest he do something tremendously stupid with them. “I will not have Long John Silver die of an ear prick, of all things, under my watch. My  _God_. Could you imagine the ridicule we'd have to contend with if Whitehall were to find out that’s how you—" 

“Christ, what? Is it that bad?” 

When Flint doesn't reply, Silver clicks his tongue, vindicated. “I knew it. You think Howell will have to cut it off? Because to be honest with you I’m tired of losing my limbs for the sake of this piracy business. At this rate I'll be legless, earless, and likely hairless to boot, considering how many times a day I'm tempted to tear it the fuck out of my—Flint?”

The wound, as it is, is barely a wound. Obviously Madi only had the time to break the skin of Silver's earlobe before Flint ran inside like a lunatic and interrupted them. There's plenty of blood, sure—all over the back of Silver's neck and a generous amount staining his shirt—but it seems like Silver's just a bleeder. None of this has anything to do with Flint's sudden silence. 

"Come  _on_ ," Silver prompts, craning his neck to catch Flint in his periphery. "Don't tell me Captain Flint is flinching at the sight of a little  _blood—_ I've seen you dig a bullet out of your shoulder with your fucking  _fingers_  for Christ’s sake, Flint, you can’t be serious—"

"It's not the—when did you get that?"

“What?” Strands of hair fall out of Silver’s grip and back over his ear as he struggles in his chair to catch Flint’s eye. "When did I get  _what_? What are you—"  

The apple slips from Flint’s grip and falls noiselessly to the carpeted ground. As if his arm is not his own he reaches out in a daze to push Silver's hair to the side, to run his thumb over the exposed stretch of skin behind Silver's bloodied ear. Silver goes rigid immediately. He stares hard at a point slightly to the right of where Flint’s standing.

There—behind the curve of cartilage and almost invisible under the red smears—is a small tattoo of a crescent blue moon, nestled into the hollow of Silver’s skin.

"That," Flint says, quietly.

A shivering beat of silence, before Flint presses his thumb over it and Silver breathes a single; " _Oh_."

"Is it new?"

There's a strange disconnect, then. Flint can hear himself speaking but his voice belongs to someone else, hoarse and unrecognizable. A nameless sensation blooms in his chest, expands boundlessly like the rising tide around his ribs, his heart. It is both overwhelming and achingly familiar, promising to fill the whole room if he lets it loose. Instead it climbs up in his throat with nowhere to go and threatens to drown him where he stands. 

"It's been a few months," Silver says, his voice a little thin. He still won't look at Flint. "I'd forgotten about it." 

It's alarming, the way Flint can't bring himself to stop touching the ink. There is some light scarring, he can feel it, though it is still healing remarkably well for such a sensitive spot. He brushes his thumb over it again and again as though he can wipe it off along with the red on Silver’s neck, though honestly he isn’t sure what he wants; for it to disappear or stay etched into Silver forever.

Something like an aborted shudder runs through Silver when Flint's thumb ghosts closer to his ear. He abruptly slides his crutch off his lap and braces it against the floor. The knuckles of his right hand go white, clenching around the padding at the top.

"It was De Groot, after the battle,” he says, still staring straight ahead. “Got a steady pair of hands, that one. He's your man if you ever want another tattoo."

The implication freezes Flint's hand at last. He turns away from the tattoo to stare at Silver’s profile. Months, he thinks stupidly, as he watches Silver's jaw work with the effort it takes for him to sit still. It's been  _months_. Long enough for Silver to heal around it, grow used to it, forget about it. The ground itself seems to quake under Flint’s feet. The tremor in his hand returns, suddenly, and it's so  _obvious_ ; there is no fucking way to hide it with his fingers flush against Silver like this. He wants to withdraw, leave the room; never see or think about the tattoo or the feeling in his chest or the pressing warmth of Silver’s skin, but leaving right now seems as impossible as staying, as talking, as staying silent.

It doesn't go unnoticed. After a shaky exhale that sounds as if it has been trapped in his throat for too long, Silver's eyes fall shut, his chin falling to his chest at the same time. He sits there, shuddering under Flint’s hand, the two of them tethered by a single touch alone, until Silver makes a rough sound in the back of his throat and uses his crutch to push himself around in his chair.

His whole neck slips into Flint's open hand as he turns. Undeterred, he presses forward and Flint can feel his pulse fluttering, Silver’s warm throat resting on the web between Flint's thumb and index finger. Beneath his furrowed brow Silver’s eyes are sharp,  _shining_ ; an agonizing ocean of blue standing out against the red of his blood on Flint’s hand.

" _Yes_ ," Silver says, answering a question Flint could never voice. His gaze doesn't waiver as he looks up, defiant,  _angry._  "Yes, it's intentional.”

A swooping feeling in his stomach as if he’s flinging himself overboard, Flint asks, “Why would you—”

"Why do you think?" Silver hisses, baring his teeth and jerking forward, "Why the  _fuck_  would I unless I—”

His mouth clamps shut around a sharp inhale. He breathes hard through his nose before he says, “Do not ask me what it means. But know that it's fucking intentional. Is that—could that—be enough?”

_Could there still be trust between us?_

The room sways. Rage has seeped out of Silver like sand through fingers and he's fucking quivering in Flint's hand, instead, staring at him with terrifying sincerity and  _it’s enough_ , Flint wants to say,  _it’s enough, it’s more than enough; it’s not enough, it’ll never be enough, it’ll never be enough—_

“Just let it be,” Silver murmurs, as if Flint is giving it away, “Please."

It's the  _please_  that lodges in Flint's throat. The word shivers in the air between them and Silver waits; poised to talk, poised to  _fight_ , his leg jumping in place like he wants to rise out of his chair. Flint has to swallow before he trusts himself to speak.  

"All right."

It hits Silver slowly, and then all at once. He stares at Flint hard for a moment, his jaw working on top of Flint's hand. Then something breaks in his expression and he tips forward; Flint releases him immediately, moves to step away, but Silver’s hand clamps down around his wrist, holding him in place with an iron grip. Slowly, deliberately, Silver turns Flint’s hand over and presses his mouth to the inside of Flint’s palm.

It’s a soft thing. A reverent thing, fleeting like a breeze; but awe hits Flint as violently as a blow to the back of the head. He wants to keel over with it, set himself alight with it; the fierce fire of devotion that surges through him, up his arm, down his shoulders, filling his chest to the brim. 

Between one breath and the next, Flint knows. As sure as he’s known  _anything_ , as irrefutable as the sun in the sky, the sea beneath it, the sword in his hand; he knows that whatever Silver decides to give him, for however long he gives it, it’ll be enough, it’ll be enough.

Whatever it is,  _it'll be enough._

Silver releases him. He moves to rest his warm forehead against Flint’s open and waiting palm.

"All right,” Silver says, breathing evenly again. “All right.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I mean for this to be in the same universe as my previous arm-wrestling fic. I don't know how they got here but they did.


End file.
